MEXICO CITY — An explosion at the office headquarters of Mexico’s state-owned oil company killed 25 people and injured 101 on Thursday as it heavily damaged three floors of a building, sending hundreds into the streets and a large plume of smoke over Mexico City’s skyline.

Rescuers continued to search the rubble for victims trapped in the debris late Thursday, Jan. 31, with the aid of rescue dogs, trucks with mounted lights and an oil company crane.

Interior Minister Miguel Osorio Chong said it was uncertain if there were any people still trapped but that crews would keep searching. Many of the office workers were outside having lunch when the explosion occurred about 3:45 p.m. local time in a basement parking garage of an administrative building next to the iconic, 51-story tower of Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, one of the tallest buildings in Mexico City.

President Enrique Pena Nieto said authorities have not yet found what caused the blast in the 14-story building in a busy commercial and residential area. Pemex first said it had evacuated the building because of a problem with the electrical system. The company later said that the Attorney General’s Office was investigating the explosion and any reports of a cause were speculation.

Osorio Chong said the explosion hit the basement and first two floors, which rescuers said had collapsed.

“It was an explosion, a shock, the lights went out and suddenly there was a lot of debris,” employee Cristian Obele told Milenio television, adding that he had been injured in the leg. “Co-workers helped us get out.”

Ana Vargas Palacio was distraught as she searched for her missing husband, Daniel Garcia Garcia, 36, who works in the building where the explosion occurred. She said she last talked to him a couple hours earlier.

“I called his phone many times, but a young man answered and told me he found the phone in the debris,” Vargas said. The two have an 11-year-old daughter. His mother, Gloria Garcia Castaneda, collapsed on a friend’s arm, crying “My son. My son.”

The tower, where several thousand people work, was evacuated following the blast but not damaged, according to Gabriela Espinoza, 50, a Pemex secretary for 29 years who was on the second floor when the explosion next door occurred.

“There was a very loud roar. It was very ugly,” she said.

Espinoza’s co-worker, Tomas Rivera, 32, worked on the ground floor and was knocked to floor, fracturing his wrist and jaw.

Hundreds of firefighters, military in camouflage and Red Cross workers hauled large chunks of concrete and looked for victims late into the night, with at least four bodies pulled out of the rubble, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.

The exploded building was intact on the outside but filled inside with debris.

TV images showed people being evacuated in office chairs, and on gurneys. Most of them had injuries likely caused by falling debris.

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